Use this quick tip to leverage your images on Pinterest and increase your traffic to your site. Whether you have an e-commerce website or a blog, you want to drive people to your site, and Pinterest can help. To help leverage Pinterest, you need to create content that is Pinnable. While there are many factors that contribute to the Pinnablity of an image, one often overlooked and easily used solution is the Alt Text of images. (For an intro to image Alt Text read this short article.)
Alt Text is Critical for Pinning
The Alt Text of an image will give you some control and influence over your Pins descriptive text. Instead of just depending on the visual impact of your Pin, you can also try to grab users’ attention by using clear and engaging descriptive text. The text of the description is also used to generate search results within Pinterest.
When a visitor at your site decides to Pin one of your images, Pinterest automatically pulls the Pin’s description from the Alt Text that you set for your image. Users can change the description, but most will leave the description unaltered or just add to what is already written.
Creating Great Alt Text for Images
Following are the top 5 key factors for creating alt text that will best leverage the power of Pinterest:
1. Be Engaging: Don’t be dry and just give the facts in your description. Keep your description in the same tone as your blog, and use great writing to make Pinterest users want to read more. This is the first taste they will have of your site; make it a good one.
2. Use Keywords: Do not try stuffing the alt text full of random keywords. Focus on using keywords that are relevant to the image and to the post that the image is part of. Do your research and figure out what keywords your readers/users actually use.
3. Link to Your Site: Think of the link to your site as your source information. You are letting people quickly see where the pin originated from.
4. Use Hash Tags: Pinterest uses hashtags for search and this will also help make your Pin more shareable across other social networks.
5. Keep it at 140 Characters: Pinterest doesn’t limit a Pins description to 140 characters but I have found that it only pulls the first 140 characters of the Alt Text into the description field. So anything over 140 characters will get truncated with the dread…
Now go out and add some alt text to your images to make killer Pins!
